1. How bitterly does everyone tied to this world defend the specialness he wants to be the truth! ²His wish is law to him, and he obeys. ³Nothing his specialness demands does he withhold. ⁴Nothing it needs does he deny to what he loves. ⁵And while it calls to him he hears no other Voice. ⁶No effort is too great, no cost too much, no price too dear to save his specialness from the least slight, the tiniest attack, the whispered doubt, the hint of threat, or anything but deepest reverence. ⁷This is your son, beloved of you as you are to your Father. ⁸Yet it stands in place of your creations, who are son to you, that you might share the Fatherhood of God, not snatch it from Him. ⁹What is this son that you have made to be your strength? ¹⁰What is this child of earth on whom such love is lavished? ¹¹What is this parody of God’s creation that takes the place of yours? ¹²And where are they, now that the host of God has found another son whom he prefers to them?

2. The memory of God shines not alone. ²What is within your brother still contains all of creation, everything created and creating, born and unborn as yet, still in the future or apparently gone by. ³What is in him is changeless, and your changelessness is recognized in its acknowledgment. ⁴The holiness in you belongs to him. ⁵And by your seeing it in him, returns to you. ⁶All of the tribute you have given specialness belongs to him, and thus returns to you. ⁷All of the love and care, the strong protection, the thought by day and night, the deep concern, the powerful conviction this is you, belong to him. ⁸Nothing you gave to specialness but is his due. ⁹And nothing due him is not due to you.

3. How can you know your worth while specialness claims you instead? ²How can you fail to know it in his holiness? ³Seek not to make your specialness the truth, for if it were you would be lost indeed. ⁴Be thankful, rather, it is given you to see his holiness because it is the truth. ⁵And what is true in him must be as true in you.

4. Ask yourself this: Can you protect the mind? ²The body, yes, a little; not from time, but temporarily. ³And much you think you save, you hurt. ⁴What would you save it for? ⁵For in that choice lie both its health and harm. ⁶Save it for show, as bait to catch another fish, to house your specialness in better style, or weave a frame of loveliness around your hate, and you condemn it to decay and death. ⁷And if you see this purpose in your brother’s, such is your condemnation of your own. ⁸Weave, rather, then, a frame of holiness around him, that the truth may shine on him, and give you safety from decay.

5. The Father keeps what He created safe. ²You cannot touch it with the false ideas you made, because it was created not by you. ³Let not your foolish fancies frighten you. ⁴What is immortal cannot be attacked; what is but temporal has no effect. ⁵Only the purpose that you see in it has meaning, and if that is true, its safety rests secure. ⁶If not, it has no purpose, and is means for nothing. ⁷Whatever is perceived as means for truth shares in its holiness, and rests in light as safely as itself. ⁸Nor will that light go out when it is gone. ⁹Its holy purpose gave it immortality, setting another light in Heaven, where your creations recognize a gift from you, a sign that you have not forgotten them.

6. The test of everything on earth is simply this; “What is it for?” ²The answer makes it what it is for you. ³It has no meaning of itself, yet you can give reality to it, according to the purpose that you serve. ⁴Here you are but means, along with it. ⁵God is a Means as well as End. ⁶In Heaven, means and end are one, and one with Him. ⁷This is the state of true creation, found not within time, but in eternity. ⁸To no one here is this describable. ⁹Nor is there any way to learn what this condition means. ¹⁰Not till you go past learning to the Given; not till you make again a holy home for your creations is it understood.

7. A co-creator with the Father must have a Son. ²Yet must this Son have been created like Himself. ³A perfect being, all-encompassing and all-encompassed, nothing to add and nothing taken from; not born of size nor place nor time, nor held to limits or uncertainties of any kind. ⁴Here do the means and end unite as one, nor does this one have any end at all. ⁵All this is true, and yet it has no meaning to anyone who still retains one unlearned lesson in his memory, one thought with purpose still uncertain, or one wish with a divided aim.

8. This course makes no attempt to teach what cannot easily be learned. ²Its scope does not exceed your own, except to say that what is yours will come to you when you are ready. ³Here are the means and the purpose separate because they were so made and so perceived. ⁴And therefore do we deal with them as if they were. ⁵It is essential it be kept in mind that all perception still is upside down until its purpose has been understood. ⁶Perception does not seem to be a means. ⁷And it is this that makes it hard to grasp the whole extent to which it must depend on what you see it for. ⁸Perception seems to teach you what you see. ⁹Yet it but witnesses to what you taught. ¹⁰It is the outward picture of a wish; an image that you wanted to be true.

9. Look at yourself, and you will see a body. ²Look at this body in a different light and it looks different. ³And without a light it seems that it is gone. ⁴Yet you are reassured that it is there because you still can feel it with your hands and hear it move. ⁵Here is an image that you want to be yourself. ⁶It is the means to make your wish come true. ⁷It gives the eyes with which you look on it, the hands that feel it, and the ears with which you listen to the sounds it makes. ⁸It proves its own reality to you.

10. Thus is the body made a theory of yourself, with no provisions made for evidence beyond itself, and no escape within its sight. ²Its course is sure, when seen through its own eyes. ³It grows and withers, flourishes and dies. ⁴And you cannot conceive of you apart from it. ⁵You brand it sinful and you hate its acts, judging it evil. ⁶Yet your specialness whispers, “Here is my own beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” ⁷Thus does the “son” become the means to serve his “father’s” purpose. ⁸Not identical, not even like, but still a means to offer to the “father” what he wants. ⁹Such is the travesty on God’s creation. ¹⁰For as His Son’s creation gave Him joy and witness to His Love and shared His purpose, so does the body testify to the idea that made it, and speak for its reality and truth.

11. And thus are two sons made, and both appear to walk this earth without a meeting place and no encounter. ²One do you perceive outside yourself, your own beloved son. ³The other rests within, his Father’s Son, within your brother as he is in you. ⁴Their difference does not lie in how they look, nor where they go, nor even what they do. ⁵They have a different purpose. ⁶It is this that joins them to their like, and separates each from all aspects with a different purpose. ⁷The Son of God retains his Father’s Will. ⁸The son of man perceives an alien will and wishes it were so. ⁹And thus does his perception serve his wish by giving it appearances of truth. ¹⁰Yet can perception serve another goal. ¹¹It is not bound to specialness but by your choice. ¹²And it is given you to make a different choice, and use perception for a different purpose. ¹³And what you see will serve that purpose well, and prove its own reality to you.